II. The spectre of the world spirit

133 ***) Ibid. I, 4.

134 +) Ibid. I, 32.

135 ++) Baruch 6, 39. +++) e.g. Hist. of Phil. 1, 120. 68 The Spectre how burlesquely he deals with the world-spirit when he calls it a „mole* )“! How frivolous, when he says that this demon sometimes „puts on seven-league boots** )“! So much, however, is certain, that he ascribes to this demon, if he still holds it for a real being, the most malicious intentions against the living God and His holy church. The world-spirit would accordingly have to be the most cunning, most diabolical demon. Thus, for example, in Christianity the true reconciliation is not yet given, the reconciliation is rather still represented as having occurred outside the subject, the spirit is therefore still unreconciled in itself and its world torn into a transcendent one, in which the reconciliation has occurred and still has its seat, and a this-worldly one, in which the subject lives with its torments and sufferings. But patience! cries Hegel to his pupils, the world-spirit still lives: „it hollows out the interior, i.e., undermines the positive Christian world, the church and heaven! — the appearance, the external form still remains; but at last it is an empty husk and the new form breaks forth***).“

136 Hegel is enraptured when he describes the subterranean burrowing of this demon: „it always proceeds forward, because only the spirit is progression.“ (Ha! ever onward, into hell!) „Often it seems to have forgotten, lost itself; but inwardly opposed to itself it is inner continued working — as Hamlet says of the spirit of his father: well done, brave mole — until it, strengthened in itself, now bursts the earth-crust which separated it from its sun, its concept, so that it collapses. In such a time it has put on the seven-league boots, where they, a soulless, decayed building collapses and it shows itself formed in new youth+).“

137 * ) e.g. Ibid. III, 691.

138 „The fanatical cry of triumph of the Revolution, the scornful laughter of hell we hear finally directly, when Hegel confesses*): „A new epoch has arisen in the world. It seems that it has now — (So?) — succeeded for the world-spirit to put off from itself all foreign objective being and finally to grasp itself as absolute spirit and to generate from itself what becomes objective to it and, with calm against it, to keep it in its power. The struggle of finite self-consciousness with the absolute self-consciousness, which appeared to the former outside it, ceases. The finite self-consciousness has ceased to be finite and thereby, on the other hand, the absolute self-consciousness has obtained the reality which it previously lacked.“

139 How then? Has the world-spirit previously had no reality in itself? So it would be nothing with its absoluteness, divinity? Indeed not. „If the mole (!) burrows on in the interior, we have to listen to its urging and procure reality for it**).“ In itself, therefore, it is not real. It resembles the idols which can neither stir nor do anything, „therefore it is much better to be a useful household utensil, which is useful in the house, or a door which keeps the house, or a wooden pillar in a royal hall, than such a powerless idol***).“ The world-spirit first has its reality in the human spirit or it is nothing but the „concept of spirit+),“ which develops and completes itself in the historical spirit and in its self-consciousness. It has no realm for itself, no world, no heaven for itself, it has no throne and sceptre, for the „only realm of spirits that exists, the true realm of spirits is that long procession of spirits++),“ which in history

140 *) Ibid. III, 689.690.

141 **) Ibid. III, 691.

142 thought and spirit is the deed*), but this deed is the deed of the individual successive generations. So it was therefore only figuratively — a deed of the „world-spirit**), when Hegel ascended the lectern at Heidelberg and instructed the young people in philosophy. „Works of thought," not of the world-spirit, works of self-consciousness are „religion, political history, state constitutions, arts and sciences as well as philosophy***)." Self-consciousness is the sole power of the world and of history and history has no other meaning than that of the becoming and development of self-consciousness. have revolutionised. „The life of the world-

143 „Tantae molis erat, se ipsam cognoscere mentem+)."

144 The world-spirit is only an image which the philosopher occasionally sets up and to which he then gives the attributes of divinity: the crown, the sceptre and the purple mantle. The philosopher knows very well, however, that this image represents only self-consciousness and he does not shrink from giving back to this the divine attributes, from placing the crown of God on self-consciousness, putting the sceptre of the Almighty in its hand and wrapping the purple mantle around it. The philosopher does as the priests of the Chaldeans, who also „steal the purple mantle from their gods and clothe their wives and children with it++).“

145 If it goes so badly with the world-spirit, which the philosopher himself placed on the throne and seemed to recognise, how shall it then go with the true, real God, whom the philosopher does not recognise at all? Nothing but hatred and contempt can Hegel feel for Him.

146 „The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God*).“ On the contrary: „Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night**).“

147 When it is written***): „For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast,“ and when the believer edifies himself thereby, strengthens his faith from the contemplation of the order and beauty of nature, when to the pious „the name of the Lord alone is high+)“ — then the philosopher grumbles, growls against it. He wishes to know nothing of the fiery impulse of the heavenly Father, who cannot invite and draw His own to Himself eagerly and urgently enough. He rails against the elevation of the pious, who is drawn and driven to God by the urge of his soul. „Superstition, says Hegel++), passes from the immediate appearance directly to God.“ That is to him still the crudest attempt, yes that is to him no philosophy at all, which considers the world as a creature of God. He praises, for example, atomism, that it has overthrown the representation of creation and expressly designates it as gratifying when one sees before one a system which does not need a deity, when it comes to *) Ps. 14, 1. **) Ps. 1, 2. ***) Ps. 33, 9. +) Ps. 148, 13. ++) Hist. of Phil. II, 498. 72 Hatred against the investigation and explanation of nature. „Atomism opposes itself to the representation of a creation and preservation of the world by a foreign being. Natural science feels itself in atomism first freed from having no (! hear! hear!) — no ground for the world. For if nature is represented as created and preserved by another, then it is represented as not being in itself, i.e., it has a foreign ground, it is comprehensible only from the will of another; as it is, it is contingent, without necessity and the concept in itself. In atomism, however, the representation of the in-itself of nature is present in general, i.e., thought finds itself in it and this is the gratifying thing for the concept, precisely to comprehend it*).“

148 When earlier philosophers still left God the honour and derived the creation of the world from His holy will, Hegel feels unpleasantly affected, he believes he is wandering in a desert where goblins tease him, and feels at home again only when a philosopher appears who relies purely and solely on reason. „With Descartes, he says**), we properly enter into an independent philosophy, which knows that it comes independently from reason. Here, we can say, we are at home and can, like the sailor after long wandering on the stormy sea, cry 'Land!'.“

149 From now on, from Descartes on, no philosopher appears to whom Hegel does not assign praise or blame, according as he valued God high or low, and his boundless contempt for God as well as at the same time for the philosopher expresses itself when he judges the attempts of those who still wished to recognise God.